Lawrence of Judea

The champion of the Arab cause and his little-known romance with Zionism.

T.E. Lawrence - better known in Britain and throughout the Middle East as Lawrence of Arabia - was a lifelong friend of Arab national aspirations. In 1917 and 1918 he participated as a British officer in the Arab revolt against the Turks, a revolt led by Sharif Hussein, later King of the Hedjaz. He was also an adviser to Hussein’s son Feisal, whom he hoped to see on the throne of Syria. For generations of British Arabists, Lawrence was and remains a symbol of British understanding of and support for the Arab cause. Virtually unknown, however, is his understanding of and support for Jewish national aspirations in the same era.

In mid-December 1918, a month after the end of World War I, Lawrence was instrumental in securing an agreement between Emir Feisal and the Zionist leader Dr. Chaim Weizmann. The meeting was held at the Carlton Hotel in London (a building subsequently destroyed in the London Blitz). At this meeting, Lawrence acted as the interpreter. Weizmann assured Feisal that the Zionists in Palestine should be able “to carry out public works of a far-reaching character” and that the country “could be so improved that it would have room for four or five million Jews, without encroaching on the ownership rights of Arab peasantry.”[1]

As Weizmann wrote in his notes on the meeting, Feisal explained that “it was curious there should be friction between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. There was no friction in any other country where Jews lived together with Arabs…. He [Feisal] did not think for a moment that there was any scarcity of land in Palestine. The population would always have enough, especially if the country were developed. Besides, there was plenty of land in his district.”[2]

On January 3, 1919, Feisal and Weizmann met again in London, to sign an “Agreement between the King of the Hedjaz and the Zionists.” Lawrence, who was once again the guiding hand in this agreement, hoped that it would ensure what he, Lawrence, termed “the lines of Arab and Zionist policy converging in the not distant future.”[3]

“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.”

On March 1, 1919 Lawrence, while in Paris as the senior British representative with the Hedjaz Delegation, drafted and then wrote out in his own hand a letter from Feisal to the American Zionist Felix Frankfurter. In this letter, Feisal declared, “We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with the deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement.” Feisal went on to say that Weizmann “has been a great helper of our cause, and I hope the Arabs may soon be in a position to make the Jews some return for their kindness. We are working together for a reformed and revived Near East, and our two movements complete one another.” The Jewish movement, Feisal continued, “is national, and not imperialist: our movement is national and not imperialist, and there is room in Syria for us both. Indeed I think that neither can be a real success without the other.” Feisal then added, in strong, optimistic words: “I look forward, and my people with me look forward to a future in which we will help you and you will help us, so that the countries in which we are mutually interested may once again take their place in the community of the civilized peoples of the world.”[4]

If Lawrence’s support for Jewish national aspirations was not known to his contemporaries, it was perhaps suspected. In early 1920, as Lawrence prepared his wartime experiences of the Arab Revolt for publication, he wrote to the author Rudyard Kipling to ask if he would read the proofs of his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom. Kipling replied that he would be glad to see the proofs, but that, if it emerged from them that Lawrence was “pro-Yid,” he would send the proofs back to him untouched.[5]

Kipling was distressed at the thought that Lawrence might be pro-Jewish. And indeed, Lawrence’s view of the potential evolution of the Jewish National Home in British Mandate Palestine was far from hostile to Jewish hopes. In an article entitled “The Changing East,” published in the influential Round Table magazine in 1920, Lawrence wrote of “the Jewish experiment” in Palestine that it was “a conscious effort, on the part of the least European people in Europe, to make head against the drift of the ages, and return once more to the Orient from which they came.”[6]

Lawrence noted of the new Jewish immigrants: “The colonists will take back with them to the land which they occupied for some centuries before the Christian era samples of all the knowledge and technique of Europe. They propose to settle down amongst the existing Arabic-speaking population of the country, a people of kindred origin, but far different social condition. They hope to adjust their mode of life to the climate of Palestine, and by the exercise of their skill and capital to make it as highly organized as a European state.”[7]

As Lawrence envisaged it in his Round Table article, this settlement would be done in a way that would be beneficial to the Arabs. “The success of their scheme,” he wrote of the Zionists, “will involve inevitably the raising of the present Arab population to their own material level, only a little after themselves in point of time, and the consequences might be of the highest importance for the future of the Arab world. It might well prove a source of technical supply rendering them independent of industrial Europe, and in that case the new confederation might become a formidable element of world power.”[8]

It seemed to Lawrence - as it did to Winston Churchill when he discussed the question of eventual Jewish sovereignty with the Peel Commissioners in 1937, shortly after Lawrence’s death - that it would take a long time before a Jewish majority would come into being. Such a contingency, Lawrence had written in his Round Table article, “will not be for the first or even for the second generation, but it must be borne in mind in any laying out of foundations of empire in Western Asia.” These, to a very large extent, “must stand or fall by the course of the Zionist effort.”[9]

When Churchill became colonial secretary in January 1921, he appointed Lawrence to be his Arab affairs adviser. At the outset of his appointment, Lawrence held talks with Feisal about Britain’s Balfour-Declaration promise of a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Reporting on these talks to Churchill in a letter dated January 17, 1921, Lawrence was able to assure the new colonial secretary - responsible for finalizing the terms of the Palestine Mandate - that in return for Arab sovereignty in Baghdad, Amman, and Damascus, Feisal “agreed to abandon all claims of his father to Palestine.”[10]

This was welcome news for Churchill, but there was a problem. Since the French were already installed in Damascus, and were not willing to make way for Feisal or any Arab leader, Churchill proposed giving Feisal, instead of the throne of Syria, the throne of Iraq, and at the same time giving Feisal’s brother Abdullah the throne of Transjordan, that part of Britain’s Palestine Mandate lying to the east of the River Jordan. Installing an Arab ruler in Transjordan would enable Western Palestine - the area from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, which now comprises both Israel and the West Bank - to become the location of the Jewish National Home under British control, in which, in Churchill’s words, the Jews were to go “of right, and not on sufferance.”[11]

“[Churchill] trusted that under the influence of a just policy,” Arab opposition to Zionism “would have decreased, if it had not entirely disappeared.”

Briefed by Lawrence at the March 17, 1921, Cairo Conference, Churchill explained to the senior officials gathered there that the presence of an Arab ruler under British control east of the Jordan would enable Britain to prevent anti-Zionist agitation from the Arab side of the river. In support of this view, Lawrence himself told the conference, as the secret minutes recorded: “He [Churchill] trusted that in four or five years, under the influence of a just policy,” Arab opposition to Zionism “would have decreased, if it had not entirely disappeared.”[12]

Lawrence went on to explain to the conference that “it would be preferable to use Trans-Jordania as a safety valve, by appointing a ruler on whom we could bring pressure to bear, to check anti-Zionism.” The “ideal” ruler would be “a person who was not too powerful, and who was not an inhabitant of Trans-Jordania, but who relied upon His Majesty’s Government for the retention of his office.”[13] That ruler, Lawrence believed, would best be Emir Abdullah, Feisal’s brother.

The presence of Lawrence of Arabia at the Cairo Conference was of inestimable benefit to Churchill in his desire to help establish a Jewish National Home in Palestine. Lawrence’s friendship with the Arab leaders, with whom he had fought during the Arab Revolt, and his knowledge of their weaknesses as well as their strengths, was paralleled by his understanding of Zionist aspirations. In November 1918, on the first anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Lawrence had told a British Jewish newspaper, “Speaking entirely as a non-Jew, I look on the Jews as the natural importers of Western leaven so necessary for countries of the Near East.”[14]

On March 27, 1921, ten days after Lawrence’s suggestions in Cairo, Churchill sent him from Jerusalem to Transjordan to explain to Abdullah that his authority would end at the eastern bank of the River Jordan; that the Jews were to be established in the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan (“Western Palestine”); and that he, Abdullah, must curb all anti-Zionist activity and agitation among his followers.

The next day, in Jerusalem, Lawrence, Churchill, and Abdullah were photographed at British Government House: Churchill bundled up against the cold, Lawrence in a dark suit and tie, Abdullah in army uniform with Arab headdress. At their meeting that day, Abdullah agreed to limit the area of his control to Transjordan and to refrain from any action against the Jewish National Home provisions of the Palestine Mandate west of the Jordan.

Lawrence had thus helped ensure that the building up of the Jewish National Home could continue. He already knew that national home’s potential: Twelve years before the Cairo Conference, while traveling through the Galilee around Tiberias, he reflected on the glory days of the region in Roman times, and on the Jewish farm settlements he saw on his travels. Writing home on August 2, 1909, he explained, “Galilee was the most Romanized province of Palestine. Also the country was well peopled, and well watered artificially: There were not twenty miles of thistles behind Capernaum! And on the way round the lake they did not come upon dirty, dilapidated Bedouin tents, with the people calling to them to come in and talk, while miserable curs came snapping at their heels: Palestine was a decent country then, and could so easily be made so again. The sooner the Jews farm it all the better: Their colonies are bright spots in a desert.”[15]

The rest is well known: The “bright spots in a desert” evolved into a thriving state on the basis of the skill and capital Lawrence marveled at decades prior. It is hard to know how he would have responded to the Arab world’s growing intransigence toward the Jewish presence in the British Mandate, let alone to its violent attempts to destroy the Jewish State while still in its birth pangs - the same State that he believed held such promise for the Arabs of the region. T.E. Lawrence died in May 1935 of fatal injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident near his cottage in Dorset, at the age of only forty-seven. The accomplishments of his short life have assured his place in the pantheon of modern Arab history. Perhaps it is now time that modern Jewish history paid him homage as well.

This essay originally appeared in Azure 38, Autumn 2009, and is being published with permission. [link to azure.org.il ]

Notes:

From Chaim Weizmann’s interview with Emir Feisal at the Carlton Hotel, December 11, 1918, archives of the British Foreign Office in the Public Record Office, London, 371/3420.

Letter from Feisal to Frankfurter, March 1, 1919, reprinted in the New York Times on March 5, 1919, the Times (London) on March 6, 1919, and the Jewish Chronicle (London) on March 7, 1919. See Isaiah Friedman, Palestine, a Twice-Promised Land?: The British, Arabs, and Zionism, 1915-1920 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 2000), p. 228.

Visitor Comments: 18

(18)
Andria,
June 26, 2014 9:00 PM

Response to TE Lawrence article

I knew since childhood that Eliot was antiSemitic but read nothing of Lawrence being pro Israel. It seems to have been conveniently suppressed except in small circle of historians who seem to have ignored it.

(17)
Haia Mihel,
July 22, 2011 12:05 PM

A Question of Enlightnment

“It was as with Negroes, tom-tom playing themselves to red madness each night under the bridge. Their faces, clearly different from our own were tolerable, but it hurt that they should posses exact counterparts of all our bodies”, this quotation is not from Mein Kampf, it is from Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I was quite fascinated by Lawrence in my mid-teens (as well as his friend, the poet Siegfried Sassoon), until I stumbled across this remark in his famous book, along with many others, chronicling his hatred of blacks, Indians, women and the French. He was undoubtedly a gifted man, someone who could have used his talents for a greater good of mankind had he learned to master his own nature. Instead, he wove countless tales and legends around himself, most of them untrue and often contradictory of each other. Perhaps he took a secret pleasure in “pulling the wool” over the eyes of so many luminaries of his day. He longed to be recognised as writer and a poet and so he was incredibly charming when in the company of recognised literary figures, such as George Bernard Shaw and Robert Graves. It was quite different when he was around “ordinary” women and children. He was often downright rude, but seemed to back down when confronted. (Nicolette Devas’s memoir Two Flamboyant Fathers and Jerusalem, my country by Bertha Spafford- Vester in December 1964 National Geographic are just two of many examples). It doesn’t really matter what we label Lawrence or into what neat pigeonhole we stash that jumble of records, letters, impressions and contradictions that made up his life. I am not here to label him anything, only to object to one label. That of an “enlightened” man.

(16)
Neicee,
July 21, 2011 5:21 PM

Oddly enough,

I was a history major. I knew that T.E. Lawrence was very pro Arab, but his involvement with both Arabs and Zionists was never presented in books or class. I've enjoyed Kipling since childhood, but didn't know he was anti-Jew/semitic/Zionist. How disappointing. Sadder still, is how well Kipling would have fit in today's London.
Wonderful article. My thanks to the author.

(15)
Jane,
July 15, 2011 8:26 PM

Another Wonderful Lesson on History

Imagine if T.E Lawrence had lived another 20-30 years. The difference he might have made!! Now my curiousity is piqued. I would like to know more about the history of the area for the 50 years prior to Lawrence's time. Most of us don't have a very clear picture of the evolution of the Middle East. Maybe because there was so much change happening on every continent at that particular time. Now I wish I had been a history major in college....though guidance counselors tried to discourage all of us from that choice. Thanks again for the enlightenment.

(14)
John W. Rosen.,
July 15, 2011 12:18 PM

Lawrence of Judea.

A most enlightening article about a man with vision, foresight and understanding. He foresaw the advantages that a Jewish State, alongside an Arab state, living in peace and harmony, could have for the region. Regretfully, that ideal state of affairs did not materialize. Anarchy, hatred, destruction, venom and jealousy persists to today.

(13)
Jay,
July 14, 2011 3:06 PM

Kipling

I did not know Kipling was a jew-hater.

(12)
Kitty Corbett,
July 12, 2011 1:44 AM

What a remarkable story!

I had no idea of the role that T. E. Lawrence played in the establishment of a homeland for the Jews west of the Jordan. How much more meaningful and complete would have been the movie, "Lawrence of Arabia," had it included this important phase.

(11)
Richard,
July 11, 2011 3:47 AM

Consistent with his scholarship

Lawrence was a remarkable man of a sort that doesn't exist anymore. He was not only a brilliant field soldier, but was a classical scholar who translated Homer. He became friends with the wonderful writer Robert Graves at Oxford after the war, and was most assuredly familiar with the history of the region and his respect for that history formed his enlightened attitudes.

(10)
Anonymous,
July 11, 2011 3:46 AM

Add to this fine article the work of Orde WIngate another nonJew

T.E. Lawrence and Orde Wingate were related to eachother. In a brilliant lecture at the HAZAK CAMP program of the United Synagogue ,Sheldon Horowitz tied the two men together. He focused on Wingate. Now I add Lawrence to the picture...as well as Churchill. He also lectured about Chaim Weizman...

(9)
Rick,
July 10, 2011 6:41 PM

Excellent article

Thank you for writing about this little-known aspect of T.E. Lawrence's exploits. It throws new light on the recent history of Israel, and exposes the current "Palestinian" politicians as the imposters they are. Arafat wasn't Palestinian. He was Egyptian.

(8)
AlbertE.,
July 10, 2011 6:18 PM

Lawrence

Churchill said of Lawrence at the time "Lawrence is one of the seven most important men in the world". Also the idea of confederation was popular at the time, but WITHOUT JEWISH SOVEREIGNTY! As to the opportunities for development squandered, "emotion clouds reason - - Michael Corleone".

(7)
Isahiah62,
July 10, 2011 6:07 PM

Great Article

learned a lot from this - Thank you

(6)
E#d Sizemore,
July 10, 2011 6:06 PM

Lawrence of Judea

Gret article! I was not aware of his involvement with Zionism. I will share with many friends, one of whom is a professional historian.
Ed Sizemore
McKinney, Texas

(5)
Anonymous,
July 10, 2011 4:54 PM

important history

So little is made public of this time in history and the finer details of the modern middle east, this is a great article and could only wish more like this would be made known to the wider world.
It would be good to hear more about people like Orde Wingate and John Henry Patterson also.

(4)
george hafitz,
July 10, 2011 3:40 PM

illuminating and well documented !!

As revealed in most history, an eye opener and mind stimulator. Will send me to the librry for more.

(3)
Researcher,
July 10, 2011 3:27 PM

Nice article!

Very nice article! I think Lawrence was that type of person who is ready to be a friend to everyone - someone who genuinely appreciated the common good. I agree that we could name some good parks and gardens in Israel after him so the kids will ask "who was that?" and investigate the history.

(2)
Mona Kaplan,
July 10, 2011 3:21 PM

Splendid summary by my favorite Jewish historian

Sir Martin writes with a delicious flow of facts, revealing shades of history that are unknown. He is our favorite contemporary historian whose facts come from the mouths of great history-makers like Winston Churchill and Survivors whose stories he has garnered with such love and reverence. This is another choice vignette of history unearthed by Gilbert. His "Churchill and the Jews" is an important contribution.

(1)
David,
July 10, 2011 2:35 PM

Remarkable story

What a pity that the Arabs chose to squander all that potential... certainly, the Middle East would be a much happier place had they followed Feisal's vision...

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Jewish law requires that there be rabbinic supervision during the milking process to ensure that the milk comes from a kosher animal. In the United States, many people rely on the Department of Agriculture's regulations and controls as sufficiently stringent to fulfill the rabbinic requirement for supervision.

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There are additional esoteric reasons for being stringent regarding Cholov Yisrael, and because of this it is generally advisable to consume only Cholov Yisroel dairy foods.

In 1889, 800 Jews arrived in Buenos Aires, marking the birth of the modern Jewish community in Argentina. These immigrants were fleeing poverty and pogroms in Russia, and moved to Argentina because of its open door policy of immigration. By 1920, more than 150,000 Jews were living in Argentina. Juan Peron's rise to power in 1946 was an ominous sign, as he was a Nazi sympathizer with fascist leanings. Peron halted Jewish immigration to Argentina, introduced mandatory Catholic religious instruction in public schools, and allowed Argentina to become a haven for fleeing Nazis. (In 1960, Israeli agents abducted Adolf Eichmann from a Buenos Aires suburb.) Today, Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America with 250,000, though terror attacks have prompted many young people to emigrate. In 1992, the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 32 people. In 1994, the Jewish community headquarters in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 85 people. The perpetrators have never been apprehended.

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